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Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

It was a long slog, full of politics, drama and delay. But a bill to expand Medicaid to 470,000 additional low-income Michiganders was signed into law Monday by Gov. Rick Snyder.

“The right answer is not to talk about politics, but our family of 10 million people,” Snyder said before signing the bill at Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn. “We had people in our family who needed health care; people who had to rely on the ER for their basic health care. And what a failure that is. It was just a bad answer.”

The bill helps to implement a portion of the federal Affordable Care Act, which mandates that all people have health care coverage after Jan. 1. The feds will pay 100% of the cost of the program through 2017 and then that match will decline to 90% by 2020.

The Monday morning bill signing was a rare show of bipartisanship. The audience was filled with both Republicans and Democrats who worked on passing the bill. And Gov. Rick Snyder shared the stage with U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, who was one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act in Washington. Both men got standing ovations when they rose to speak.

“Good public policy always overrides politics, but it took courage, tenacity and relentless positive action to bring us all here this morning,” said Brian Connolly, president and CEO of Oakwood Healthcare.

Dingell acknowledged that the ACA has flaws, but congratulated Snyder for helping push it through the Legislature in a better form.

“Health care is a right, not a privilege,” Dingell said. “The expansion is only a part of a very large piece of legislation. There are faults with that legislation and we should take the governor’s course and ferret out those faults. There are imperfections there. The last perfect bill came off Mt. Sinai with Moses.”

Snyder made sure to praise leaders in both parties and the bipartisan support that helped the bill make it through the Legislature. Democrats were all in support of the bill, while Republicans were split and many were adamantly opposed to anything to do with what they call “Obamacare.”

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Republicans in the state Senate failed to give the bill immediate effect, meaning it won’t go into effect until April. That delay is expected to cost the state about $7 million a day in lost federal funds. While the state House passed the bill by a wide majority in June, it took the Senate two votes before narrowly passing the bill on a 20-18 vote in late August. But that shouldn’t take away from the accomplishment of getting the bill passed after six months of publicly pushing for the legislation, Snyder said.

“If anything, this is a great illustration of bipartisanship and hopefully we’ll have more opportunity to do that in the future,” Snyder said.

Dingell echoed the sentiment, noting: “For the sweet love of God, let’s understand that we have to work together to make our government work.”

Michigan becomes the 25th state to pass Medicaid expansion. Twenty-one states have decided not to go ahead with the expansion and five are still debating the issue. It is expected to bring $198 million into the state in 2014.

Medicaid recipients who fall within 133% of the federal poverty level — $15,281 for a single person and $31,321 for a family of four — will have to contribute 5% of their health care costs and 7% after four years.

While the bill enjoyed bipartisan support in the Legislature, the business and health community also were behind the expansion.

“I only have eight employees, so I’m not required to carry health care for them. But for 25 years, we have because we think of them as family,” said Cynthia Kay, who owns a corporate communications and media production firm in Grand Rapids. “If I’m concerned about my family — my employees — why wouldn’t I be concerned about the rest of Michgan. This makes great business sense.”